Lucid Eyes
by Sonora Gabriel
Summary: "She had spent the last two days ignoring me. Turning her back so she couldn't see what I was saying. Hiding her eyes behind a veil of tangerine hair." Post episode 10 POVs.
1. Bay

She had spent the last two days ignoring me. Turning her back so she couldn't see what I was saying. Hiding her eyes behind a veil of tangerine hair. Those eyes, which usually shone with such force, so uncharacteristically dull. Nearly breaking into me with half second looks before averting again. Assigning themselves an invisible target on the floor. Those eyes whose owner's heart had been broken a few too many times. But this time, I thought, she had done it to herself.

Emmett, Toby, and Wilke were still on their mini road trip. Their show had gone well, Emmett had texted. And there were a few bands at the festival that they wanted to check out before heading back. Emmett was gone. My brother was gone. Simone was busy with her new boyfriend. The only person I had to talk to wouldn't acknowledge my existence. The friendship we had so cautiously forged had fallen apart.

"Axe Girl" came out in full force. She appeared on sides of buildings, dumpsters, and playgrounds all around Mission Hills. She was the part of me I couldn't let go. Even if it meant attempting a friendship with a person I hardly knew. A person whose bright eyes pierced my dreams at night. Reading into me. Telling me what a horrible person I am. And how could you do this to me?

I walked past the living room and noticed her sitting out by the pool. I watched for a few moments as she slowly turned through pages of a paperback book. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and sent her a text message. "Can we talk?" I could almost hear it vibrate. I watched as she picked up her phone and looked at it for a few seconds before putting it back down again. I sent another. "Daphne, please." I watched as she picked up her phone once more and repeated that sequence of actions. An unsure need to continue came over me. Text after pleading text. Time was lost on me. She didn't even bother picking up the phone to look at it. But I could see it in her. The slightest tinge of panic each time she felt the phone vibrate.

"I care about this friendship" was the last text I sent before it happened. Like a cyclone. Twirling in and out in a brief moment, leaving only destruction. She had screamed. Then I saw the phone make a small splash in the water. Undoubtedly breaking (not just) the phone. But perhaps ripping that tiniest thread that might have been holding us together. I ran out the door and onto the patio.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I screamed at the back of her head. Of course she couldn't hear me. But it was like she could feel that I was there. She stood up and turned around, dropping the book to the ground. "Nine Stories" by JD Salinger.

"Bay, can you please just leave me alone," she both signed and spoke at once.

"I can't. I'm sorry." I spoke slowly, knowing that my signing wasn't always good enough for anyone to understand. "Just talk to me!"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Understand what?" I asked, trying to tread softly. Knowing what a miracle it was that she was saying anything.

"You don't understand what it is like to be me."

"Yes, I do. I am the only one who understands."

"No, Bay! You've taken everything from me! What more do you want?"

"What are you talking about?" I almost screamed.

"My mother, Ty, Liam, my entire life! And now you've taken... Em... Emmett too." And as she spoke the smallest of tears began to form in her left eye. I closed both of mine for a second and imagined that glow that used to radiate from hers.

"That's what this is all about? I can't believe you. All of this because of a boy!" My voice turned into a scream and hers followed suit.

"This is not about Emmett!" She took a step into me as she spoke.

"Then what?" I shouted. No response. The tear in her eye grew. Then became two. Then more. They gently fell down her cheek. A slow motion stop frame as one touches the stone ground below us. I tried my best to remain unaffected. The agitation in my voice grew. She couldn't hear it, but I knew she could perceive it. "What?"

In one swift motion her lips were touching mine, her hand on the back of my neck. Shock took over my body. I couldn't move. Couldn't think. Couldn't subsist. It wasn't until she sunk to the ground, crying, that my mind began to find its way again. I looked down at her and watched as she curled herself up. Hugging herself. Rocking back and forth. And then I knew what "what" was.

A door slam. In my brief freeze I had missed the telltale sonance that Daphne couldn't have heard if she had tried. From the other side of the house I heard a shout. My brother's voice.

"We're back!"


	2. Daphne

I was twelve years old when I met Angelina. My mother took me to a park a few blocks away from our house in East Riverside. There were two basketball courts there. One of them was being used by a bunch of teenagers. The other one was empty. I ran over to the court with my basketball and started practicing shooting. I wasn't very good yet, but I always enjoyed myself. I remember how tall the basket loomed over me. I remember thinking I could never be tall enough to play the way I wanted to play. I spent a particularly long time working on a certain shot. I was about to try for what seemed like the hundredth time when I felt someone touch my shoulder. Startled, I turned around to see a Latina girl who looked about my age.

"I've been shouting at you for a while now," she said. I couldn't hear the words but I was getting better at reading lips. I stared at hers.

"I'm deaf," I said as I touched my right index finger to my cheek, near my ear, and then the corner of my lip. She copied me immediately.

"Deaf," she said as she made the sign. It was the first time a hearing person had so immediately tried to understand me. We played basketball in silence for the rest of the afternoon. My mother invited her over for dinner that night. We stayed up so late, just talking, that Angelina slept on our couch that night. She conveniently had an extra set of clothes in the overstuffed black backpack she had with her.

I didn't see her again for a few days. She showed up at the basketball court with ripped clothes, a limp, and blood streaming down her cheek. I took her home and my mother cleaned her up and wrapped her ankle. Angelina sat on our couch that night, with a bag of frozen peas on her ankle, and told us that she had been homeless and traveling for almost three years. She spoke very slowly and signed a few words. She admitted to spending hours on end at the library, looking at books on American Sign Language. She was trying to learn so she could speak with me more easily.

She slept on our couch every night for a week. We barely had enough money to feed ourselves but I knew my mother. I knew myself. We couldn't let this child live out on the streets. My mother started looking into finding foster care for her. Once that started Angelina slept next to me in my bed every night. We became best friends. We did everything together. I didn't invite Emmett over because I didn't want to share Angelina with anyone else.

She got out of bed one night and I didn't even need to open my eyes to know what she was doing. After a while she sat down next to me on the bed and touched her hand to my hair. I opened my eyes. I could tell that she was speaking but I couldn't hear what she was saying. I knew that she knew I couldn't hear her. I imagined her to be saying "I'm sorry. Thank you for everything. You changed my life." But maybe I was just projecting. Maybe that was just what I wanted her to say. A car drove by and for an instant I saw her signing "I love you." She leaned over and kissed me. Then she grabbed her backpack and left, just like that. I realized then that I had been in love with her the whole time and just didn't know what it meant.

The next morning when my mom asked I told her that I didn't know where Angelina had gone. I looked for her for weeks. I went to the basketball court every day hoping she would show up. She didn't, though.

I never told anyone about the stolen kiss.


	3. Emmett

"Sorry about earlier. Glad you're back. Rough day. Talk tomorrow?" the text message from Bay vibrated in my hand. I shrugged my shoulders and texted her back.

"K, nite." I turned off the lights and fell asleep pretty quickly after that. It had been a long day. I even fell asleep before getting a chance to plug in my phone, leaving me with an almost dead battery in the morning.

Bay was already waiting for me by the time I made it to school. She looked very nervous and was pacing through the grass until she saw me.

"I texted you a few times this morning," Bay spoke and signed slowly.

"What? No good morning kiss?" I signed.

"Please, Emmett," she signed back.

I signed "okay" and held out my phone so she could see that it was dead.

"Oh," she said.

"So what's going on?"

"I need to talk to you about something. It's important."

"Okay."

"Was Liam Daphne's first boyfriend?" she asked me.

"Yes," I signed. "There's no one else I can remember."

"Are you sure?" Bay asked.

"Yes," I signed. She didn't say anything so I tried to continue the conversation. "Why?"

"I know it's ridiculous," she said, rolling her eyes up to the sky, "but do you think she might not even like guys?"

"That is ridiculous," I signed. I saw Daphne walking across the way and waved her over. Bay turned around, saw Daphne coming over, and took a few steps backwards.

"I have to go," she said. She walked past Daphne and they didn't even look at each other.

"Why did Bay just ask me if Liam was your first boyfriend?" I asked Daphne.

"I don't know," she said.

"You're lying," I said. I could always tell when she was lying.

"I'm not," she said, and walked away in the opposite direction she had come from.

I charged my phone in the library during my lunch period. As soon as it turned on again I texted Bay with "What is going on with you two?" I never got a response to that question.


	4. Daphne II

Meeting Bay was scary. She had the same eyes as Angelina and the same curly, dark hair. The first time Emmett picked me up at the Kennish's guest house was when I noticed it. As we rode away I turned around and looked at Bay until she was out of my sight. I had this jarring flashback of a little girl, broken and bleeding, appearing on the basketball court. I could almost feel Angelina's hand touching my hair.

I had spent too much time pretending. Too much time lying to myself about what I wanted. Dating Liam because he wanted to date me. Making out with Wilke because he wanted to make out with me. Deciding that I must have feelings for Emmett because I knew he had feelings for me.

I had already given up everything for the sake of a potential friendship with this girl I barely knew. I wasn't sure there was much left for me to give up.

I was leaving Buckner when I spotted Bay walking up the stairs. I shouted her name but she ignored me. I ran over and stopped right in front of her. She said nothing.

I looked at her and I just knew. After all that time I had spent reading her lips; it was different now somehow. All I could think about was pressing mine against them again. My mind flashed back to Angelina and the kiss I never knew I wanted. When my mind made its way back to the present I looked at those lips and knew what I wanted; but couldn't have.


	5. Bay II

"Bay," Daphne said to me.

"Daphne," I said with my eyebrows furrowed.

"We need to talk," she said.

"You need to talk," I responded, briefly glad that she couldn't hear the condescending tone with which I had spoken. Realizing it may have been better if she had.

"Does this change everything?" Daphne asked me.

"I don't know," I answered. "It might."

"I didn't want it to be like this," she said, her eyes trained on the ground for a moment, then somehow finding their way back up to me. Telling me everything she couldn't. Her voice, the voice I used to pretend I couldn't understand, sounding so mellifluous. "I don't want things to change," she added. And I believed her.

I waved my hands around until she looked back up at me.

"Are you like... In love with me?" I asked with no remorse. My resolve to dissolve any opportunity for perplexities or mixed signals stood firm. She said nothing for a while, her eyes finding that fixed spot on the ground again.

"Yes," she said, reverting back to staring at the concrete. She didn't look back up for a long time. By then I knew what I needed to say.

"Nothing is going to happen between us," I signed. I was thankful, then, that I had spent the last few days practicing my signing with Emmett. Using my speaking voice for that response seemed so cold. So callous. So unwaveringly robotic.

"I know," she said.

"Then why did you kiss me?" I asked, outrage bubbling beneath the surface.

"Because if I hadn't," she started. "I might have never known how much it hurts," she said, finally staring at me instead of the ground. But staring as if I were slowly strangling her heart without even realizing it. Without even knowing it could be a possibility. "And then I couldn't move on." She took a moment of pause. "So what can I do?"

I stared nervously back, knowing how cautious I had to be. How what I said next could skew or erase the trajectory of our relationship.

"You can be my friend," I said, knowing it was the wrong thing to say. But for some reason I couldn't stop there. All mercy I had saved for her earlier had elapsed. It was like I was holding the potentially detrimental axe in my hand. Outside of myself. Watching the seemingly innocuous little girl in the pink dress swing the weapon with such force that it came down too hard on this fragile, tangerine haired girl. "And we can forget this ever happened."

I turned my body and continued up the stairs, not daring to look back at the misery and confusion I imagined to have enveloped her face. Not daring to look back into the lucid eyes of the girl whose life I might have been living.


End file.
